Restaurant Market Growth

If you’ve done Dubai you’ve definitely seen - if not visited - an Americana restaurant without realising it. Think KFC, Pizza Hut, Hardee’s, Krispy Kreme, Baskin Robbins and more - all operated across the Middle East and North Africa by Americana Restaurants, the region’s biggest food service companies. The scale is huge. Americana runs over 2,600 restaurants in 12 countries, serving millions every week. In 2024, despite adding more than 200 new outlets, profits fell 39% to $159million as consumer boycotts of US brands spread in response to the Gaza conflict. That’s when Americana pivoted. Rather than cut jobs, they drove cost efficiencies, stayed debt-free, and doubled down on regional expansion. First-half 2025 results show: revenues up 15.6% year-on-year to $1.2billion, LFL up 12.4%, EBITDA up 17.9%, and FCF up 151%. But Americana is also shifting strategically. Chair Mohamed Alabbar is now pursuing local fast-food brands to reduce reliance on Western franchises, aiming to tap into a $33billion dining market growing at ~9% annually. And it’s not just Americana. Big US names are under pressure too. Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Starbucks and McDonald’s have seen regional sales dented by anti-US sentiment. In some markets Coke sales are down over 20%, while historic local sodas like Egypt’s Spiro Spathis have seen sales surge a whopping 300%. A powerful reminder of the importance of developing and developed markets alike. Growth will keep coming from emerging economies, but only if brand strategies fit local sentiment, politics, and culture. Americana’s story is a live case study of how to adapt fast, build resilience, win in complex markets, in a complex world. #RegionalGrowth #ConsumerTrends #BrandStrategy #FoodIndustry #MiddleEast #ConsumerProducts #Luxury #Retail #Americana #QSR FYI: Helle Valentin - Lula Mohanty

I think a very visible observation at this year's Restaurant Show was logical tech instead of theoretical. There was less "glimpses into the future" and more "proof of concept." Here's one of those in action: For two and a half years, Wingstop has worked on a new Smart Kitchen that forecasts demand in 15-minute increments, telling the store how many wings to drop. The system takes into account more than 300 variables tailored to each unit, like weather, sales trends, and sports. It also features digital touch-screen displays at every work station instead of paper chits and an order-ready screen at the front so consumers can keep up with their order. Another feature: there are now sticker print outs that identify what flavors are in each package. At restaurants where the technology has been installed, wait times have been cut in half to about 10 minutes, and there have been notable improvements in guest satisfaction, accuracy, consistency, and employee turnover. In the delivery channel, Wingstop has been able to show up in under 30 minutes. Why is this important? Shorter wait times allow the brand to become a greater consideration. Instead of serving as a destination—with an average frequency of just three times per quarter and once a month—the quicker service could entice guests to visit more often, especially during on-the-go periods like the afternoon daypart. The Wingstop Smart Kitchen is in 400 restaurants and the chain hopes to complete the rollout by the end of the year. Again, real-time innovation in the back of the house. That seems to be the battleground right now. More here: https://lnkd.in/eMHMUkmZ

Food manufacturing (NAICS 311) is the most freight-centric sector of the economy, accounting for almost 15% of all ton-miles hauled by for-hire trucking firms. How Americans consume that food has shown tremendous swings since the COVID-19 pandemic. Two charts below based on inflation adjusted (a.k.a., “real”) sales from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (https://lnkd.in/gSMFH-ri). Thoughts: •Top chart shows inflation adjusted sales for food and beverage stores as an index where 100 = 2019, along with the pre-COVID trendline from 2017-2019. Data are quarterly from Q1 2017 – Q1 2024. With COVID’s onset, sales surged almost 8%. They stayed at that level before starting to fall through 2022 and have been flat since 2023. This places sales well-below the 2017-2019 trendline. My thought is much of what we are seeing is consumers pulling back purchases due to food inflation (food at home prices are up 25% since before COVID-19). •Bottom chart shows the same data except for food service and drinking places. Here we see something different; Q1 2024 is right in line with the 2017-2019 trendline. Interestingly, food away from home is also up 25% from before COVID-19. •What can explain these differences? My hunch is that Americans, after 2 years of well below normal eating out, are allocating a greater share of wallet to experiences as it pertains to their food consumption. Not inflation adjusted data supports this assertion (https://lnkd.in/g5-9yuAa). Implication: The shifting on consumers’ food consumption may help explain the softness in the truckload market. Food Service and Drinking places are heavily supplied food by wholesalers that tend to rely on private fleets to cover a greater share of mileage from manufacturing plant to consumer, in addition to many restaurants relying on direct sourcing from farmers. #supplychain #supplychainmanagement #freight #trucking #truckload #logistics

For decades, Cracker Barrel has been less of a restaurant and more of a ritual. The rocking chairs out front. The peg game on the table. The logo etched into memory like the smell of biscuits and gravy. Last week, Cracker Barrel unveiled a new logo after 55 years. What’s left is cleaner and simpler. But it also raises a $700M question about brand transformation. Logos aren’t just assets. They hold history, sentiment, identity. And when you alter them, you’re not just tweaking design, you’re touching memory. So the reactions came quickly: ↳ Supporters see necessary evolution. ↳ Critics see abandonment. Both are right. Because Cracker Barrel is attempting something nearly impossible: How do you modernize a brand where 43% of guests are 55+ while also appealing to the 23% who are under 34? That demographic gap shapes everything. From a design perspective, the move makes sense. Simpler. Scalable. Easy to deploy across thousands of touchpoints. And that’s why the logo is just the door opener. The real playbook lives elsewhere: → Burger King paired its retro rebrand with $400M in remodels. → McDonald’s invested $6B to modernize stores and operations. → Denny’s Heritage remodels are driving +6% sales lifts today. This suggests that not only logos move comps. Remodels do. Cracker Barrel knows this. They’re testing the largest menu overhaul in company history, with 19 remodels and 12 refreshes already complete. Field leaders are asking to be on the remodel list, which is an insider signal that carries significant weight. Success will be measured by four numbers: ↳ 6-12% comps in year one for remodeled stores. ↳ Dinner share up 200–400 basis points. ↳ Guest mix shifting 5–7 points toward 18–34. ↳ Retail attach rate climbing above today’s 19.5%. Relevance shows up in the P&L, not the PNG. The $600–700M transformation spans stores, ops, menu, and digital. If they nail it, they join Burger King and Denny’s in the winner’s circle. In 2025, branding isn’t just about being future-ready. Rebrands are about finding the balance between carrying the soul of the past and inviting the future in. The update might attract new curiosity, but what happens once people walk in the door? Are the in-store and digital experiences aligned with the new identity? Does the service, menu, and environment reflect the promise the brand is now projecting? The logo is just the beginning. Can brands honor the guests who built the brand while inviting a new generation to make it their own? Weigh in.

£560m revenue. 281 stores. Burgers priced at 2x the competition. So why is Five Guys still winning? Five Guys launched in 1986 in Virginia. It took 26 years to reach Europe - and when the Murrell family finally looked abroad, they collided with John Eckbert and Sir Charles Dunstone (from Carphone Warehouse), who had spent years hunting for a US concept to scale. In 2013, the first UK store opened in Covent Garden. Twelve years later, it’s one of the fastest and most disciplined rollouts in modern hospitality. The numbers (FY24): → Revenue: £560m (+20% CAGR over 7 years, including Covid) → Gross margin: ~48% (stable for a decade) → Operating profit (pre-opening costs): £33m (£133m across 4 recent profitable years) → Stores: 281 (+25 YoY) → Retained losses: £313m, funded by bank + investor backing So what’s the playbook? 1️⃣ Quality as doctrine → Every store is tested, ranked and scored twice weekly. → Hit the targets? Staff earn up to £1 extra per hour. → No freezers. Fresh prep only. → Rituals like the “15-shake fries” engineer consistency. → And then the annual Five Guys Olympics - a full-company spectacle gamifying everything from potato chopping to cheese stacking. 2️⃣ Minimal marketing, maximum product → McDonald’s has 5.5m Instagram followers; Five Guys has a tenth of that. → Growth comes from product, not advertising. → 250,000 burger combinations and fries that overflow into the bag. → And it became a cultural icon the day Obama stopped his motorcade to buy Five Guys for his staff. → Though not everything scales smoothly - the German expansion showed the limits of cultural fit and timing. 3️⃣ Leadership as the multiplier → Eckbert’s pace and standards shaped the UK engine. → Five Guys hit 100 stores in the same time Shake Shack hit 10. → His biggest fear isn’t McDonald’s or Shake Shack - it’s internal complacency. Five Guys scaled because Eckbert's standards. Succession will determine whether those become institutional - or fade the moment he steps back. -- I’m John - a CFO who loves brand and co-owner of Traction. Follow for insights on how - and why - brand building belongs on the balance sheet

The less you do, the more you win… even in crisis times. Especially in times of crisis, this is the story of Chili’s. In Europe, most of us have never walked into a Chili’s. It’s a Tex-Mex casual dining chain in the US. Think burgers, fajitas, margaritas, and sizzling skillets. Fun? Yes. Thriving in a downturn? Surprisingly, yes. While competitors like TGI Friday’s and Red Lobster were filing for bankruptcy in 2024, Chili’s grew. More customers. More sales. More relevance. Why? Because they cut through complexity and went back to basics. Here’s what brands in any industry can learn from their turnaround: - 1. Cut clutter, deliver better. They trimmed 25% of the menu. Simpler kitchen. Faster prep. Fewer errors. More consistent quality. The result? A single dish, chicken crispers, jumped 66% in sales. Not because it changed. Because it was finally done right. - 2. Ask the people closest to the problem. The CEO runs listening sessions across the US. He asks one question: “If you were CEO, what would you change tomorrow?” One idea? Fix the fry salt shaker. Seasoning used to take 30 shakes. Now? A redesigned shaker and a better bowl. Hotter, crispier fries. Happier teams. - 3. Value that doesn’t race to the bottom. They introduced barbell pricing. €6 deals for the cost-conscious. €12 premium options for those who want more. It’s not just pricing—it’s flexibility. - 4. Make your classics go viral. The Triple Dipper wasn’t new. But it looked incredible on TikTok: cheese pulls, dips, textures. That social-first framing boosted sales by 70%. Now? It makes up 14% of all revenue. Big picture? +50% revenue growth over the last 3 years. +31% sales in a single quarter (while competitors dropped). +20% traffic growth during industry-wide decline. Triple Dipper sales ↑ 70% year-on-year. Chili’s didn’t invent a new product. They fixed what was broken. They trimmed the fat. They made it work harder. This is what growth looks like when you don’t chase more... you just do better. (Never had Chili's but I 'm hungry now and want some...) [Source: The Wall Street Journal]

BREAKING: The Restaurant Performance Index (RPI) fell -1.3% in July to 97.7 points, the lowest level since the 2020 lockdowns. This index tracks the health of the restaurant industry in the US by measuring sales, customer traffic, labor, and overall business conditions. Since 2021, this metric has fallen by ~8.0%, marking the largest drop since it was launched in 2002. Such a low level in the index has only been seen during recessions. Americans are pulling back on dining out as prices have been sharply rising and recently hit new all-time highs. Since 2020, food prices away from home have increased by 27.0%, and fast food prices have jumped by 31.0%. Eating out is becoming a luxury... Source: The Kobeissi Letter, Trahan Macro Research

When you walk into a restaurant in 𝗕𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗿𝘂 vs one in  𝗩𝗶𝗷𝗮𝘆𝗮𝘄𝗮𝗱𝗮, what feels the same … and what doesn’t … tells you everything. Let me explain. Every city has its own flavour code. 𝗩𝗶𝗷𝗮𝘆𝗮𝘄𝗮𝗱𝗮, diners want ingredient-level transparency and a strong sense of local authenticity... if it’s on the plate, they want to know where it came from. 𝗕𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗿𝘂, on the other hand, leans into experience ... craftsmanship, storytelling, and that ‘something extra’ that elevates dining into discovery. So before launching in any new market, we invite guests into flavour labs - immersive tasting sessions where locals co-create the menu with our chefs. We install real-time feedback loops, bring in regional connoisseurs, and fine-tune both our 𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘴  (which reflect our brand DNA) that define the brand and 𝘭𝘰𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘰𝘦𝘴 (crafted to suit local palates) that resonate with the city. Then come what we call 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘳 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘴 - the bridge between comfort and curiosity. A very important element that binds the menu together. They help diners start with something familiar, then gently nudge them toward the new. This triad - 𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦, 𝘭𝘰𝘤𝘢𝘭, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘳 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘴 forms the backbone of a scalable yet hyper-localised restaurant strategy. That balance between global consistency and local intimacy is what builds true customer loyalty because the secret to scaling restaurants across diverse markets isn’t just great food but listening deeply enough to know what people hunger for beyond the menu. Our obsession with decoding customer behaviour locally ensures we hit the mark and stay globally consistent but locally relevant. While our signature dishes define the brand’s identity and I love them, it’s the local heroes and connector dishes that reveal the true character of each market. From 𝗕𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗿𝘂 to 𝗕𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗻, these dishes often surprise me , teaching us more about our guests than any data ever could. They show how taste, culture, and expectation vary across regions, and how far diners are willing to travel with us on a culinary journey. Observing these nuances across continents not only deepens our understanding of customers but also shapes how we scale globally without losing the soul of the brand.

5 Lessons From Opening 20+ Big Mamma Group Restaurants Across Europe: 1. Location is everything — foot traffic, visibility, and neighborhood dynamics can make or break a restaurant. 2. Markets differ dramatically — what counts as “prime” in London looks very different in Milan or Barcelona. 3. Partnerships matter — strong relationships with landlords, brokers, and local authorities are essential for long-term success. 4. Flexibility pays off — adapting design and layout to fit unique spaces often sparks creativity and efficiency. 5. Real estate strategy drives brand growth — each property decision compounds, shaping both the guest experience and the bottom line. Expanding into new markets has shown me that real estate isn’t just about securing a space, it’s about creating the foundation for a thriving, lasting brand.

Your restaurant is overstaffed. Just like it should be. And it's the smartest financial decision you'll ever make. I know. Sounds insane. Every consultant preaches lean staffing. Every owner obsesses over labor percentage. Every manager cuts to the bone. Meanwhile, the best operators I know run 2-3% higher labor. And absolutely dominate their markets. ⸻ Here's The Math That'll Make You Rethink Everything Restaurant doing $2.5M annually. Running 28% labor vs 25%. That's $75,000 "extra" in payroll. Expensive? Let's see what it buys: • Zero doubles = fresh staff, better service • Proper training time = fewer mistakes • Coverage for call-outs = no panic mode • Happy team = lower turnover Now the real numbers: Turnover drops from 75% to 40%. 35 fewer hires × $3,000 = $105,000 saved. You just made $30,000 by "overspending." ⸻ What Actually Happens When You Staff Properly I watched this transformation at a 200-seat steakhouse: Before: Skeleton crew • Servers with 8-table sections • Bartenders making salads • Managers expediting • 25% labor cost • Chaos every night After: Full staffing • Servers with 5-table sections • Dedicated support staff • Managers actually managing • 28% labor cost • Smooth service The results? Average check: Up 22% Table turns: Up 15% Guest complaints: Down 70% Revenue: Up $400K annually That 3% labor investment returned 16% more sales. ⸻ The Hidden Cost of Lean Staffing Here's what lean staffing actually costs: Your best server quits: $8,000 to replace Two bad Yelp reviews: $15,000 in lost sales Manager burnout: Priceless Guest never returns: $1,200 annually Add it up. That's $25,000+ per incident. How many incidents per month? Meanwhile, properly staffed restaurants: Staff stays years, not months. Guests become regulars. Managers have time to improve operations. Everyone makes more money. ⸻ The Strategy Nobody Talks About Stop managing to minimum coverage. Start staffing for maximum performance. Tuesday lunch needs 3 servers? Schedule 4. Saturday night needs 8? Schedule 10. "But Jim, that's expensive!" No. Turnover is expensive. Bad service is expensive. Stressed teams are expensive. Proper staffing is an investment. ⸻ Here's Your New Playbook Calculate your true turnover cost. Add your lost sales from poor service. Factor in manager burnout. Now compare that to 2-3% higher labor. Which costs more? The restaurants crushing it post-COVID? They figured this out. They're not managing labor percentage. They're managing guest experience. And banking the difference. 👊🏻 P.S. Still cutting staff to hit your labor target? Your competition is fully staffed and taking your customers. P.P.S. Want to see the staffing matrix that helped that steakhouse add $400K? Comment "STAFFING" below. Sometimes more is actually more. #RestaurantManagement #LaborCost #RestaurantSuccess